Table of Contents. Rochester MBA Teaching FAQ

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2 Table of Contents Getting Started... 3 Planning Your Class... 3 Classroom Advice... 5 Travel & Accommodations... 7 Rochester Facilities

3 Getting Started This guide is intended to give Duluth faculty teaching in Rochester all of the information they need to be successful. In it we will discuss guidelines for class planning, classroom advice, travel & accommodations, and UMR facilities. Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us: Shanna Decker Rochester MBA Program Coordinator Rochester Campus Office: Cell: Carlee Williams Executive Ofc and Admin Spec Duluth Campus Office: UMR IT/ITV Support Services Office: Cell Phone: ** Note: During class please call the cell for immediate assistance, as staff may not always be in the office. ** UMD ITSS Helpdesk Office: Planning Your Class MBA students in Rochester tend to have busy schedules juggling work, school, and family. Anything you can do to help them plan their time in advance would be greatly appreciated by the students. Here are some key points to guide you: 1. Class Web Page: The sooner you can get your syllabus up on the web, the better they can plan for their weekend of class with you. Ideally, you should use the UM Moodle system and create the Moodle site for your class well in advance. As a last resort, you can simply send the Word document or PDF file to Shanna (sndecker@d.umn.edu) who will distribute it 3

4 to students. Generally speaking, you should try to have your syllabus ready and online about a month prior to the first class, but no later than two weeks before your first weekend of class. 2. Course Textbooks: Almost all students prefer to order their textbooks from online vendors. So, please put detailed text information on the syllabus. Ideally, you should include ISBN numbers to make it easy for them to order. If you have a custom textbook or value pack, the publisher is usually willing to create an order page for the students to go to directly. If you have no alternative but to order through the UMR bookstore, please contact Shanna (sndecker@d.umn.edu) to make arrangements. 3. Guest Speakers: Our contacts in Rochester have been extremely successful at finding excellent quality, high profile guest speakers, should that be desired. Students have commented on how guest speakers have significantly added to the richness and practical value of the class. If you think your class could benefit from a top-notch speaker, please contact Shanna (sndecker@d.umn.edu) as soon as possible with some guidelines on the kind of speaker you would like, the topic(s) you would like the speaker to cover, etc. As a side benefit, this gets people involved in, thinking about, and hopefully talking about our program. 4. Readings for First Class Meeting: Given that 3 credit classes meet for almost 10 hours each weekend, our students expect to have a lot of readings for the first class meeting. This is why it is important to get your syllabus ready as early as possible. Students like to get a head start on their preparation for class. Do not hesitate to expect the students to have done quite an extensive amount of preparation for the first weekend of class (before you have even met them!) 5. Class Timing/Schedule Plan: Classes in Rochester meet according to the following schedule: 1-credit class: Friday: 3:00 PM 6:30 PM [No dinner served] (780 minutes) Saturday: 9:00 AM 12:00 NOON 1-credit classes meet for two weekends We have offered the 1-credit classes in a Friday-only format that the students liked: Friday: 2:30 PM 9:30 PM [Half hour for dinner] This is optional and depends on the preferences of the instructor. Please let Carlee or Shanna know as soon as possible as dinner arrangements will need to be made. 2-credit class: Friday: 3:00 PM 8:00 PM [Half hour for dinner] (1575 minutes) Saturday: 8:00 AM 12:15 PM 2-credit classes meet for three weekends 3-credit class: Friday: 3:00 PM 9:00 PM [Half hour for dinner] (2350 minutes) Saturday: 8:00 AM 12:30 PM 3-credit classes meet for four weekends 4

5 3- and 2-credit classes include 30 minutes break for dinner on Friday. Contact hours are calculated assuming a few short 5-10 minute breaks during the class. 6. Photocopying/Handouts: All MBA class-related photocopies in Duluth using the LSBE copier can be charged to the MBA copy code Please use this code only for copies directly related to the teaching of your class in Rochester. 7. Emergency Contact: If you are comfortable doing so, please send an to Shanna (sndecker@d.umn.edu) with as much contact information as possible (home phone, cell phone, work phone, etc.) at least two weeks before class. This way, they can contact you in case of any urgent need, such as inclement weather or Rochester campus emergency. This information will be kept in a confidential file and will not be shared without your permission. Classroom Advice 1. Class Plan: It is a good idea to schedule your hours for each weekend into 30- or 60-minute blocks of time devoted to the topics you intend to cover that weekend. Sharing that schedule for each weekend with the students will ensure that both you and the students will stay focused and on track during the long hours of class. Without a written schedule of how you will be spending your class time, there is sometimes a tendency to either (a) fail to cover some topics, which are then moved to the next weekend, (b) lack of time for in-class discussions, or (c) completely skip some scheduled topics (that students have prepared) and exclude them from your class. All of these options tend to frustrate students who put a lot of time and effort into preparing for the class. Try to have some optional topics or activities to add to the class should you happen to get through your material faster than expected. Unlike most undergraduate students, MBA students occasionally complain about faculty who get done early and don t have enough content to fill the time available. 2. Communications: Being on a remote campus, the students in Rochester expect to communicate with the UMD faculty via . Almost all of our students there are regular users of and expect the faculty to be quite comfortable communicating via too. Always set up a Google Course Group ( or, contact ITSS helpdesk at ) so you can all students with a single address. The course group also allows for sharing of Google Drive folders with documents and spreadsheets. Share this address with students if they want to communicate with the whole class at once. You should warn them, however, that you get a copy of every that is sent to the list. Share information on the upcoming weekend of class with students using the alias. You should also plan on using to accept assignments and provide feedback. If for some reason it is not possible for you to follow this norm in terms of usage, make it clear 5

6 to the students up front (on your syllabus) so that there are no misunderstandings or false expectations on either side. Ideally, you should provide clear guidelines to students in terms of your preferred mode of communication, how quickly they can expect you to respond to (will you respond on weekends? Will they get a response within 24 hours?), what sort of communications are appropriate with you, etc. Since different faculty have different styles, it is best to make all your expectations as clear as possible up front so students know what to expect from you. 3. Feedback: Probably the one biggest complaint from students about some MBA classes is the lack of feedback on their performance. These tend to be high-achieving and motivated students. They want to do well in your class and get frustrated when they feel they aren t getting enough feedback on how to improve their performance. Some professors have simply given the students a score (or grade) on their assignments without detail on what they should have done differently. As one student told me, How would a professor like it if I just said he or she was lousy without explaining why? That s how I felt when I got a grade with no explanation on why I got that grade and no advice on how I could get a better grade on the next assignment. You should almost certainly plan on getting students feedback well before the following class meeting. Sometimes, faculty will return graded assignments the following class meeting, by which time the next assignment is already due. The goal should be to try (as best possible) to minimize the number of assignments student have to submit with no feedback on what they re doing right or wrong. Ideally, the students should get quick, personal (individualized), and extensive feedback. Of course, this is not always possible, but it presents the ideal for which you should strive. Try and make any exceptions clear to the students as soon as possible. 4. Course Teaching Evaluations: Please have your department secretary put together a packet of student teaching evaluations forms as they normally do for your other classes. Your secretary can also get a large envelope with postage pre-paid (the postage can be charged to the MBA mail code 275) from the mailroom. The student volunteer in your class can then have the completed evaluations mailed directly back to Carlee Williams, the MBA Assistant at UMD (Carlee Williams, LSBE MBA Program, Labovitz School of Business & Economics, LSBE 385, 1318 Kirby Drive, Duluth, MN 55812) for processing. You can administer the evaluations on your last day of class. Those of you not on the UMD faculty should contact Carlee Williams (umdmba@umn.edu; ) about getting your course evaluation packet prior to the last weekend of class. 5. Final Exam: Since there is no final exam week in Rochester, you should plan on administering your final exam on the last day of class. Please avoid scheduling exams and assignments after the last class meeting as this eats into the time students have to prepare for their next class. Since most classes have readings and assignments due for the first class meeting, this is somewhat like using your fellow faculty member s class time. 6

7 6. Linking Class to MBA Objectives: It s a good idea to hand out a copy of the MBA Mission & Educational Objectives and spending a few moments explaining how this class fits into the overall educational objectives of the program. This helps students see how the classes fit together into a larger educational program. Although we are constantly revisiting (and revising when necessary) our objectives, you can always get the latest version from Dr. Rajiv Vaidyanathan, Ph.D. with a simple (rvaidyan@d.umn.edu). 7. Linking Goals to Learning: Consider some assignment where students reflect on their learning and explicitly link (in writing) their class learning to their own work (or other) experiences. It makes the practical relevance of your class more explicit and forces them to realize the widespread applicability of the material they learn in your class. From a program assessment point of view, we would appreciate it if you could also think of how such an assignment can serve as a learning assessment. For example, if you design an assignment that forces students to think about and submit specific examples of how they applied their learning, it could serve as a direct measure of learning of the material. It would also help you see if they re actually getting from the course what you want them to get out of your class. If you think this can form some assessment, please let me know and we will try and make any assessment using your assignment completely painless for you. 8. Ask Other Rochester Faculty: If you are a first-time Rochester faculty member (or even if you ve taught there many times and would like to learn more), have a quick chat with other faculty who have taught in Rochester about what they do to manage their class. Dr. Praveen Aggarwal, Ph.D. has an excellent checklist of how he manages several things in his class that he may be willing to share with you if you ask nicely (paggarwa@d.umn.edu). It reflects his experience with several class management issues and is not prescriptive in any way. Travel & Accommodations 1. Driving to Rochester: You can either drive your own car to Rochester and get reimbursed for actual mileage at the University mileage rate (56 cents per mile as of ) or rent a car from the UMD car pool. To get a University vehicle from the car pool, contact the Business Office, at , with details on what you need and for how long. Please check with Carlee Williams (cwillia1@d.umn.edu) for the EFS budget string. The charge will be directly billed to us. When you go to pick up your vehicle (209 Darland), take your driver s license. Make sure you note the mileage on the paperwork before you drive off (and when you return the vehicle). If you prefer to fly between Duluth and Rochester, transportation costs (air and ground) will be reimbursed up to the equivalent of 550 miles per trip. 2. Hotel: Please contact Carlee Williams (cwillia1@d.umn.edu); ) about booking your hotel room. She will also ensure that the room and parking charges are direct-billed to 7

8 UMD. Please make sure you plan to do this at least a week in advance of your travel to ensure availability. There is a negotiated a rate for the University of Minnesota Rochester at the DoubleTree Hotel in Rochester (150 South Broadway, Rochester, Minnesota 55904; Telephone: (507) ) (or National Reservations: ). This is probably now the most convenient hotel to stay because the hotel is connected to the University Square facility and you can walk directly from your room to the UMR location without even having to go outside. No matter where you stay, according to University travel guidelines, you cannot exceed a nightly rate greater than 150% of the Government lodging rate for that city ($108 per night for Rochester as of September 2014). For Rochester, this amounts to a maximum reimbursement of $162 per night for your stays. 3. Reimbursement: You will be reimbursed for mileage, meals (except the Friday dinner and Saturday breakfast that are provided in class) and lodging based on the University per diem rules (visit for detailed information). On your return, please follow the same procedures you do for your other University travel reimbursement with your department secretary. All the final paperwork should be submitted to Carlee Williams. Generally, it is acceptable for faculty teaching in Rochester to go down on Thursday and get lodging reimbursed for Thursday and Friday night each time they go down. Rochester Facilities 1. Checking in with UMR staff when you arrive & Classroom Space: All classes are held at the UMR facility located within UNIVERSITY SQUARE in downtown Rochester (111 South Broadway, formerly the Galleria Mall). Information on the location of the classroom, parking, and the faculty office can be found on the Rochester Web Page at This page is updated from time to time as new information becomes available. Please communicate your estimated arrival time to Shanna and call her when you arrive. Her desk is located in another building, but she will meet you at the Chancellor's Reception Area (Suite 340). Shanna will show you where the classroom, IT support, etc., are located. Classroom may be accessed one hour before class start time on Fridays and at 7:30 am on Saturdays. For your convenience, Shanna will give you a key to the classroom for the duration of your course. This will allow you to access the area should you leave something behind outside office hours. Please return that key to the key drop box on your last day so that the next professor will have access to it. Should you forget to return the key, please mail it back to Shanna at: UMD MBA Program 8

9 111 South Broadway, Suite 300 Rochester, MN Classroom Technology: The Rochester classrooms are equipped with desktop computer, projector, screens, a document camera for projecting paper images, DVD and CD player, and ports for jump drives. Cables are present for you to use your laptop, either IBM or Mac platform, instead of the room s desk top computer. If you plan to use the desktop computer provided, allow extra time for your first login so that it can find your identity. Shanna along with IT staff will assist you. If you ever need immediate assistance during class, call , and a member of IT staff will come over to help. It is best to call this number because IT staff is not always in the office as they triage technology around the campus. 3. Faculty Workspace: Due to increasing space constraints, you are encouraged to prepare for class in the hotel room. If office workspace is needed, please contact Shanna. 4. Student meetings: Some students may ask for meeting time before class. We can provide you with meeting space if privacy is needed, let Shanna know. 5. Copier: There is a copier available at the UMR location; it s located in Suite 361, Room 350 (Workroom). The copy code is You are welcome to use this copier for any lastminute copying of handouts for your class. If you have the materials available on Friday, Shanna will also be happy to make any copies you need before your class. 6. Parking: You should park in the public parking for the DOUTBLETREE HOTEL in Rochester (which is where we recommend you stay). The UMR facility is connected to the Doubletree Hotel and it is convenient to charge the parking to your hotel bill which will then be direct billed to UMD. 7. Network Access: You are encouraged to connect to the U of M Wireless with your laptop when you arrive, to assure access to your own drive and secure sites. Your regular U of M wireless access will work on all UM campuses. Assistance for any type of IT support throughout your class time is available in room 394 in Rochester; their cell phone number is posted in your classroom as well. 9